Renewables (R)Evolution

More than 1,550 community solar, battery storage, and hydrogen firms in the United States were rushing to regroup after last week’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which had issued them billions of dollars in operating loans.

A Honolulu company is helping low-income families in Hawaii reduce energy costs while contributing to a more sustainable grid—by linking household water heaters to create a virtual power plant, effectively repurposing the ubiquitous appliances into grid batteries.

Despite a high-profile pledge from U.S. President Joe Biden’s to eliminate US$31 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, the country’s oil and gas industry is still lining up for billions in financial support under the national climate plan it once opposed.

Bankers will have to disclose but not take action on their exposure to financial risk, and the definition of “transitional” investments leading to a net-zero economy might include new spending on carbon capture and “blue” hydrogen projects, under two new reports from federal agencies over the last several days.

How is it possible that a year of new solar and wind installations can already deliver more than twice the total peak power capacity it took Canada a century to build? In this book excerpt, author and investigative journalist Paul McKay says it’s partly because renewable production costs per unit are going down as scales and sales go up.

Job opportunities in renewable energy are pulling U.S. workers from the fossil fuel sector, but some worry that the available labour force will still fall short of the Biden administration’s clean energy goals.

Canada should focus on exporting “clean” hydrogen to Europe as the continent shifts its fuel sources away from Russia, the head of the European Union said this week, ahead of an upcoming visit to Canada.

Nova Scotia has approved plans for what could be North America’s first commercial-scale green hydrogen facility, amid lingering concerns that powering the plant could cannibalize renewable energy that’s vital to meeting the province’s climate goals.

Alberta’s ability to thrive and attract investment in a world shifting to low-carbon energy will depend on the climate and energy policy choices it makes in the weeks leading into this spring’s provincial election and beyond, the Calgary-based Pembina Institute warns in a 23-page policy roadmap released last week.

Ontario is exploring the possibility of building new, large-scale nuclear plants in order to meet increasing demand for electricity and phase out natural gas generation.

Edmonton and Toronto’s bid to become “15-minute cities” is facing pushback from fringe groups—putting them alongside Oxford, England, in a battle against climate denial, COVID-19 misinformation, and hard-right extremism.

The public pension plan that manages the retirement savings of 715,000 British Columbians has bought into a natural gas transmission network that is touting a risky scheme to use hydrogen for home heating, despite persistent concerns about the cost, safety, and climate impact of the plan.

A tiny Danish island has completed its journey to becoming the world’s first “renewable energy island,” with its roughly 4,000 residents reducing their emissions to near zero through collective ownership of wind turbines, solar panels, and biomass heating plants.

A clever series of presentation slides at a conference in Ottawa last week placed small communities at the centre of the energy transition and spotlighted Prince Edward Island as Canada’s next source of breakaway climate leadership.

Wind and solar farms with battery backup are both cheaper to build than natural gas power plants in Ontario and Alberta, and the price of the renewable options is expected to fall another 40% by 2035, concludes a report released last week by Clean Energy Canada (CEC).

Type the word “Nemaska” into a search engine and most results refer to Nemaska Lithium, the company that sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 before being partly bought out by the Quebec government’s investment agency. But Nemaska is above all a Cree community in the heart of the boreal forest that shares its territory with a wide variety of species.

Canada’s wind and solar capacity grew significantly in 2022, but not enough to hit the growth rate needed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, new data shows.

Oil and gas production will fall faster than previously expected, renewable energy will grow more rapidly, and global carbon dioxide emissions will drop as a result, according to a new analysis released yesterday by colossal fossil BP.

A new study says virtual power plants (VPPs) and their many benefits for electrical grids are at an “inflection point” as consumer demand and legislation propel a shift to greater electrification.

A nine-month news investigation by The Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organization, revealed that more than 90% of forest carbon offsets from the world’s leading provider are bogus. Indigenous and locally-controlled lands in the Amazon were storing carbon, while the rest of the rainforest was emitting greenhouse gases. Brazil’s new government confronted the “scorched earth” left behind by the Bolsonaro regime and launched its first raids against illegal tree-cutters.

Ontario’s “misleading and illegitimate” system of clean energy credits is “little more than greenwashing” and “should not move forward,” a team of three researchers writes for the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI).

Innovators motivated by climate change have been shifting hydrogen technology toward low-emission solutions, boosting the potential for green hydrogen to replace fossil fuels in industries like long-haul transport, where few clean alternatives exist.

The U.S. set out to widen more highways, even though traffic planners know it never reduces congestion. Parking lots were falling out of favour, major U.S. subway systems were falling apart, Toronto’s transit plan was falling far short, Toronto’s parking authority fell for the idea of an EV charging network, and urban transit advocates wanted a federal strategy for zero-emission transit, intercity coaches, and rail.

A group of former oil and gas executives and academics is calling for the industry to pay tens of trillions of dollars through 2050 to take full responsibility for every tonne of carbon it produces.

A South Korean solar panel maker Qcells said Wednesday that it will invest more than US$2.5 billion to build factories in Georgia in what it says is the largest solar investment in American history.

Suncor Energy and a subcontractor faced 28 charges for safety violations after a bulldozer crashed through thin ice on a frozen tailings pond in January, 2021, killing 25-year-old operator Patrick Poitras. “Someone didn’t do their job and I lost my son because of that,” his dad told CBC. “My son gave his life for that job.”

Sandy Anuras is Chief Technology Officer at Sunrun, a leading home solar, storage, and energy services company in the United States. In this feature interview last fall, she talked about nine million renewable energy jobs to be created over the next decade, a tipping point for rooftop solar, and the opportunities for workers who are too often left behind.

A new crowdfunding platform that helps individuals invest in projects like community solar could bridge the gap for a growing number of people interested in holding sustainable investments.

After nearly half a century of delaying the shift off fossil fuels, and “with the climate crisis breaching our front door,” 2022 may have been the moment when humanity finally turned a corner on emission reductions, says U.S. climate analyst Dr. Leah Stokes.

Canada will see federal just transition legislation early this year that will become a gateway for oil and gas workers to move into green energy jobs, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told CBC this week.

Ukraine is planning to speed up its shift to clean, green electricity, citing Russia’s drone and missile attacks on its electricity infrastructure as a catalyst to build a more resilient grid.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is signalling a shift away from humanitarian aid toward funding infrastructure projects in developing countries.

At least 91 people died and the eastern United States narrowly averted a massive blackout after a “bomb cyclone” hit much of the continental United States December 21-26. Facing renewed attention to the vulnerability of the Texas power grid, Governor Greg Abbott demanded a probe of fossil gas supplier Atmos Energy, just months after promising the state was ready to withstand the next round of winter storms. A Ford F-150 Lightning still had two-thirds of its battery capacity available after powering its owner through a two-day power outage in southern Ontario, and California utility PG&E distributed home batteries to help some of its customers get through summer blackouts.

With all signs pointing to a clean energy “juggernaut” that will leave slow adopters in the dust, Canada needs to plan for a drastic drop in oil demand, say experts from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

It’s “go time” for wind, solar, and energy storage in Canada—thanks to low costs, abundant resources, climate imperatives, and an estimated C$50-billion investment opportunity, says Vittoria Bellissimo, the Canadian Renewable Energy Association’s new president and CEO.

European Union governments and lawmakers reached a deal Sunday on key elements of the 27-nation bloc’s green deal, reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gas emissions and creating a new hardship fund for those hardest-hit by measures to curb climate change.

The world’s eighth-largest bank and Europe’s current biggest funder of fossil fuel expansion, HSBC Holdings, has announced it will no longer invest in new oil and gas fields. But its Canadian branch is exempt from the new policy.

A letter backed by 650 scientists says forest bioenergy has “wrongly been deemed ‘carbon neutral’” and calls on world leaders to stop the practice that they say destroys valuable wildlife habitats.

Floating solar panels, or “floatovoltaics” are an emerging technology that could open up new space for the renewable energy capacity countries need. But their environmental impacts are still an open question.

The world’s biggest fossil companies, many of them operating in Canada, approved new oil and gas projects in 2021 and early 2022 that will blow through a 1.5°C limit on average global warming, according to new analysis released late last week by the Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Power grids in North America have enough supply to keep the lights on during normal weather this year, but a new report predicts some regions will be vulnerable to power outages during extreme or prolonged periods of cold weather.

A company based in Watson Lake, Yukon has developed a portable solar+storage system with foldable panels to serve extremely cold remote locations.

The skyrocketing price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is driving down demand in China and India and raising the risk that new import terminals will be delayed or cancelled, according to a new analysis last week by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

Newcomer Davante Lewis, a Democrat backed by an environmental political action committee, easily won Saturday’s runoff for a seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission, an obscure regulatory body that has received national attention from media, celebrities, climate activists, and major public utility companies.

Key countries around the world are set to add as much new renewable energy capacity over the next five years as they did over the last 20, as governments look for affordable supplies that can address the overwhelming energy security issues raised by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its Renewables 2022 report released Tuesday.

Britain’s Conservative government on Wednesday approved the UK’s first new coal mine in three decades, a decision condemned by environmentalists as a leap backwards in the fight against climate change.

A small shift in design approach could lead to solid gains in the energy performance of low- and mid-rise institutional buildings, according to the team behind a recent energy retrofit that covered a single floor of a university hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Farmers in the United States need more tools and support to be part of the climate solution, say advocates, urging lawmakers gearing up to draft the new 2023 Farm Bill to increase funding for a rural renewables and energy efficiency.

Parking lots around the world are increasingly becoming sites for solar power generation, as governments and corporations seek out ways to accelerate their transition to renewables.

Ontario could cut projected climate emissions 85% by 2035 and reduce its use of carbon-heavy, gas-fired power plants to less than 3% of power production if its grid met rising electricity demand with energy efficiency, solar, wind, and energy storage, according to an analysis released last week by The Atmospheric Fund (TAF).

Russia’s war in Ukraine was the catalyst for a surge in global energy efficiency investments this year, as governments and consumers “turned to efficiency measures as part of their responses to fuel supply disruptions and record-high energy prices,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its Energy Efficiency 2022 report released Friday.

Microgrid and electricity system infrastructure providers are stepping up to support civilians left powerless in the dark and cold, after Russia spent weeks blitzing Ukraine’s grid to demoralize the population and force surrender.

This year’s devastating floods in Pakistan are one front in our clash with the planetary boundaries that define the rules for everything we do, but the war with nature will come to your doorstep soon, writes Corporate Knights Research Director Ralph Torrie.

While a California suburb acts as a model for decarbonizing housing on a large scale, Canadian cities like Guelph, Ontario, are finding ways to make the transition from “car-dependent hellscapes” to green cities.

Canada’s sixth-oldest family foundation has announced a five-year plan to close its doors after distributing its entire $100-million endowment to help slash the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and build a low-carbon economy.

Countries could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 500 million tonnes by 2030—the amount produced by all the cars in Europe today—by adopting heat pump technology that already supplies 10% of the world’s space heating and is poised for faster growth, the International Energy Agency concludes in a report released this week.

The United States clean energy transition received two boosts this month from the Biden administration—a US$550 million cash infusion for community-based clean energy initiatives, and a first-ever 100% carbon-free electricity agreement with a utility.

Doubling down on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Asia could destroy British Columbia’s chances of meeting its emission reduction targets and make the province vulnerable to a rapid drop in global gas demand, two expert authors argue in a recent op ed for the Vancouver Sun.

A recent lake effect snowfall in western New York offered researchers a rare opportunity to gather data about how wind turbines trigger “thundersnow”—or lightning within a snowstorm.

Negotiations to secure US$11 billion in funding to help Vietnam shift its economy off coal are in the home stretch, with the country’s debt wariness and donor concerns about suppression of dissent among the thorny issues still to be resolved.

Provincial energy efficiency programs and national energy savings rebounded after the COVID-19 pandemic, but energy savings for low-income households still need a lot more attention, Efficiency Canada concludes in the latest edition of its annual Provincial Energy Efficiency Scorecard.

Emera Inc., the parent company of Nova Scotia Power, is putting capital spending on clean energy projects in the province on hold as it works through the consequences of a government-imposed rate cap.

France is upping its renewable energy capacity by requiring all large car parks to cover at least half of their area with solar panels—a move that could generate up to 11 gigawatts of power.

A COP 27 event marked the Glasgow Statement’s one-year anniversary by urging Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United States to live up to climate promises that could shift US$28 billion per year from fossil fuels to clean energy.

African petrostates betting on fossil fuel exports for wealth creation and energy security are making an imprudent choice, warns a new report, as the “inevitable and irreversible” energy transition will slash demand, lower oil prices, and freeze investments from international oil companies.

Higher steel costs and rising interest rates are taking the blame after a small modular nuclear reactor project in Utah reported a cost increase from US$58 to $90 or $100 per megawatt-hour for the electricity it’s meant to produce.

Canada placed fifth from the bottom, and the top three ranks were left empty for the second year in a row, in the latest edition of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) released at the COP 27 climate summit Monday.

While negotiations at the COP 27 climate summit lag and fossil interests strive to dominate the conversation, countries are announcing side agreements that point toward emission reductions and energy transition in parts of the world that need them most.

Energy imports, energy conservation, new storage capacity, and effective communication helped California avoid blackouts during a record-setting September heat wave.

A new report busts the “fallacy” that boosting gas production in Africa will benefit the continent’s population. Instead, the so-called “dash for gas” will devastate the natural environment, leave local communities powerless, and wreak havoc on the climate, report authors say.

With the partisan tilt of the next U.S. Congress still uncertain nearly a week after midterm elections last Tuesday, a few things are clear: there was no “red wave” propelling Trump-friendly candidates into office, a strong youth vote was a decisive factor in the election result, and climate action was a winning issue for campaigns in several key U.S. states.

Competition Bureau Canada has opened an investigation into allegations that the Canadian Gas Association is greenwashing fossil methane as clean, following a C$10-million complaint filed in September by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).

A pitch for private investment in emission reduction projects, including tax credits for renewable energy, low-carbon heating, and clean hydrogen, is one of the highlights of the fall economic statement released Thursday by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Canadians are being sold on a future of natural gas exports to Europe just as European countries speed up their exit from all fossil fuels, says a leading energy transition researcher who’s just finished a series two-week fact-finding visits to Ireland, Denmark, and France.

Municipal climate and energy leaders in Ontario are scrambling to protect energy-efficient building standards that may be at risk in the provincial government’s rush to push through its More Homes Built Faster Act, Bill 23.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the federal government is not doing enough to fight climate change, according to a new poll that shows limited public awareness in the U.S. about a sweeping new law that commits the U.S. to its largest ever investment to combat global warming.

Nova Scotia Power’s decision to “pause” its participation in the proposed Atlantic Loop megaproject is just a temporary setback in the bid to end the region’s reliance on coal, says the federal cabinet minister charged with moving the electrical grid off fossil fuels.

The German state of Baden-Württemberg is pulling the plug on hydrogen fuel cells as an option for intercity rail after concluding the technology would cost 80% more than overhead electricity lines or battery-powered hybrids over a 30-year span.

On October 31, 1977, Vol. 1, No. 1 of Canadian Renewable Energy News hit the stands. “With the head start we had 45 years ago,” writes Energy Mix publisher Mitchell Beer, “the job should have been all but done by now.”

Oil and gas demand has levelled off, renewable energy costs are falling, and electric vehicles can dominate major markets by 2030, but countries will still need “unprecedented” emission reductions this decade to keep the worst of climate change under control, according to reports by three international agencies released yesterday and today.

The giant Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is investing up to US$474 million, or 70 billion Japanese yen, in a company that got its start as a search for energy alternatives in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Redirecting $570 billion per year from planned oil and gas investments could “fully finance” wind and solar expansion to meet a 1.5°C target, showing that oil and gas development must be halted to keep global warming within safe limits, a new report concludes.

Incoming British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will restore his country’s ban on oil and gas fracking, Reuters reported yesterday, after his predecessor Liz Truss reversed a moratorium originally set out in the UK Conservative Party’s 2019 election platform.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) is pouring nearly C$970 million into Ontario Power Generation’s plan to build the country’s first small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), a 300-megawatt unit on the site of the existing Darlington nuclear station off Lake Ontario.

A luxury fishing trip has prompted questions about the deep connections between Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier and the company hoping to kick-start a hydrogen energy sector in the province.

France will become the latest European Union country to leave an energy agreement which climate groups claim is being used by the fossil fuel industry to legally challenge environmental measures, President Emmanuel Macron said last Friday.

Germany’s global buying spree for liquefied natural gas could double consumer energy prices and cost it hundreds of billions of euros, particularly with renewably-produced hydrogen on track to out-compete LNG on price in as little as a decade, according to two recent analyses.

A 5% threshold for renewable energy on the power grid might not sound like much, but it’s the milestone that could tip electricity systems in 87 countries into a rapid shift off carbon, a Bloomberg news analyst says.

Solar and wind power purchase agreements (PPAs) in the United States could be signed for less than one cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh) thanks to Inflation Reduction Act funding, concludes an analysis by investment banking giant Crédit Suisse.

America’s extensive transmission permitting regulations could slow the clean energy transition facilitated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and reform won’t come easy for a narrowly divided senate.

Global carbon dioxide emissions are “defying expectations” and set to rise by just under 1% this year, far less than analysts predicted, due to record deployment of renewable energy and electric vehicles, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports.

Energy transition support in the federal government’s 2022 budget favoured carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCS) over the best opportunities for rapid decarbonization, Iron & Earth Executive Director Luisa Da Silva told a Parliamentary committee Tuesday.

The swirling hype over hydrogen is at risk of becoming a market bubble, veteran renewable energy analyst Michael Liebreich warned an industry conference in Rotterdam last week.

As the United Kingdom pursues fracking as a solution to its energy independence, new analysis finds the country’s power sector can reduce its reliance on gas from 40% to 1% by 2030, with a rapid renewables switch bringing £93 billion (C$142 billion) in savings.

Former Toronto mayor David Miller, now managing director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy, talks about cities’ responsibility to take action on the climate emergency.

Suncor Energy Inc. says it is selling its wind and solar assets to Canadian Utilities Limited for $730 million.

New long-duration energy storage technologies could help address key grid resilience issues, but market constraints current limit adoption to lithium-ion batteries, a technology developer says.

A deal to sell 38,000 hectares of Alberta oil and gas lands to a company controlled by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is shining a light on large fossils’ favourite path to decarbonization: rather than shutting down some of their assets, they hand them off to smaller operators that then keep them in production.

Ontario’s electricity system operator is planning to roll out a voluntary program that pays customers with smart thermostats to have their air conditioning remotely reduced on hot summer days.

Ontario can deliver enough distributed energy resources (DER) to clear a large electricity shortage over the next decade, but a prominent analyst says the provincial government is still pivoting between two equally “catastrophic” options—relying more on methane-heavy gas plants, or extending the life of an aging nuclear station outside Toronto.

Even with Europe scrambling to break its dependence on Russian gas supplies, there’s no reason for Canada to subsidize expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects with questionable long-term prospects, says clean growth economist Rachel Samson, vice president of policy at the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

“To answer a question I am often asked—Yes, we are still happy with the decision, five years ago, to replace our gas furnace with an air-source heat pump,” writes engineer and renewables advocate Bill Nuttle. “It is one of the best decisions we ever made.”

As power slowly returns to Puerto Rico in Hurricane Fiona’s wake, pressure is building to wean the island’s grid off its 97% dependence on fossils fuels—towards a climate-resilient distributed system that relies on renewables.

A U.S. rooftop solar company is facing headwinds as it seeks to build off-grid neighbourhoods that would be less dependent on established utilities.

A blockbuster, five-gigawatt commitment to offshore wind, announced Tuesday by the Nova Scotia government, will be mostly devoted to producing “green” hydrogen for export, and won’t come online in time to stop a hydrogen and ammonia project in Cape Breton from relying on coal-generated electricity, The Energy Mix and Halifax Examiner have learned.

The United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could change the landscape of energy economics with its unprecedented support for clean energy sources, says a new report.

A green hydrogen/ammonia facility planned in Point Tupper, Nova Scotia is being touted as a blessing for the province’s climate goals, even though it will initially be powered by a coal-fired grid—with all the ammonia slated for export overseas.

Britain’s new policy of capping home energy bills and subsidizing energy giants fails to address the country’s old, inefficient housing stock, says a new report—with one critic warning such an impractical energy policy could “play into the hands” of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy will save countries at least US$12 trillion by 2050, an Oxford University research team reports.

Cities and utilities in New England are experimenting with bi-directional charging technology, pulling power from parked electric vehicle batteries during peak demand to stabilize the grid and boost reliability while delivering cost savings to customers.

Outdated infrastructure is making America’s electricity grid vulnerable to blackouts in the face of climate change and an ambitious clean energy transition, experts say.

Australian states and businesses are moving in step with the country’s new climate policy, making their own leaps to decarbonization after a new climate change law pledged to slash the nation’s carbon emissions 43% by 2030.

Clean energy companies employ more than half of the 65 million workers in the global energy sector, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report that urges a just transition to support the “energy work force of tomorrow”.

EU parliamentarians are being urged to vote “yes” on a measure that would exclude woody biomass from counting towards renewable energy targets.

The incoming British government is committed to building a new generation of nuclear power stations to provide a quarter of the  nation’s electricity. But how it is going to happen remains a mystery.

Solar saved the European Union up to €29 billion in gas imports this past summer, and is poised for “exponential growth” across five of Asia’s biggest economies, according to two separate analyses released last week by the UK-based Ember think tank.

An architectural ceramic factory in China is now the world’s largest building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) project, where 665,000 square metres of solar panels built into 11 rooftop applications will provide all the electricity the facility uses.

Newly-installed British Prime Minister Liz Truss appointed a reputed climate change denier to head her energy ministry and vowed to increase North Sea oil and gas drilling in the hours after she took office Tuesday.

A text message may have saved the California power grid from crashing under the weight of a devastating heat wave Tuesday afternoon.

When it comes to getting landlords to retrofit the buildings responsible for up to 18% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, bad incentives are leading to bad outcomes, writes green economy lawyer Marc Z. Goldgrub.

Research and development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment decisions over the next decade will determine how the United States achieves a 100% clean electricity system by 2035, say the authors of a new report that finds multiple pathways to hit the target.

A 90% clean power target by 2035, $54 billion in new spending on clean energy and drought resilience, quicker approvals for power grid upgrades and clean energy projects, and a long-awaited phaseout for oil and gas wells near homes and schools are highlights of a climate package adopted last week by the California state assembly.

Vancouver-based Zinc8 Energy Solutions Inc. has confirmed plans to build its first commercial manufacturing plant—not in Canada, but in the Upstate New York, motivated by production credits under the Biden administration’s newly-adopted climate action plan.

Local partnerships are helping poorer households in the U.S. overcome cost barriers to installing solar panels, making them critical to the Biden administration’s plan to power five million U.S. homes with community solar by 2025.

A clean energy advocate is questioning the vulnerability of Midwestern U.S. energy supplies after a minor electrical fire at a single oil refinery triggered a fuel supply crisis spanning four states.

Critical minerals like lithium are key to the clean energy transition, but the mining industry’s problematic treatment of the environment and communities near extraction sites has raised concerns that the energy revolution may usher in its own wave of destruction.

After emerging from brutal July heat waves, the United Kingdom is headed for a harsh winter, with an 80% jump in energy bills expected to strain millions of households and businesses.

One of the Netherlands’ biggest onshore wind farms has responded to initial hostility from nearby residents by inviting them to invest in the project.

Denmark will increase its planned offshore wind capacity in the Baltic Sea to three gigawatts and hook it up to the German grid, a step toward weaning Europe off its reliance on Russian gas. When the new capacity is in place in 2030, it should be able to supply electricity to up 4.5 million European homes.

Floods, droughts, and major storms that wash out highways, damage buildings and affect power grids could cost Canada’s economy C$139 billion over the next 30 years, a new climate-based analysis predicts.

Using prefabricated materials to build sustainable homes could catch on as a green building practice for affordable housing across Canada, thanks to a pilot project in Regina, Saskatchewan.

A South Korean solar cell giant is planning a US$1.8-billion manufacturing facility in the United States, now that President Joe Biden has signed a climate law that includes credits for making solar panels.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signed on to a highly-anticipated but non-binding “hydrogen alliance” during a ceremony Tuesday in Stephenville, Newfoundland, capping three days of meetings that delivered new momentum for green energy development but mixed messages on the two countries’ future interest in liquefied natural gas (LNG) development.

Canada’s East Coast emerged this week as a hotbed of clean energy investment, with a high-profile green hydrogen announcement in Stephenville, Newfoundland by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz augmented—and possibly one-upped—by a new green ammonia project in Nova Scotia and talk of a third production plant in New Brunswick.

The Edmonton Expo Centre is well under way on a rooftop solar project that will be Canada’s biggest once it’s complete.

Three recent reports from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) show the country’s wind industry healthy but struggling to expand, leading to hopes that President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)might change this trajectory.

A United States start-up is cooking up a plan to mount direct air capture (DAC) technology on trains to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a much lower cost than stationary systems.

A U.S. beermaking behemoth has come up with a unique way to promote one of its brands while also, perhaps, reducing the chances of an illegal campfire starting what could become a devastating wildfire.

An energy pact between Canada and Germany expected to be signed this week in Newfoundland and Labrador will set aggressive timelines and targets for exporting hydrogen to Germany, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Friday.

Wind and green hydrogen projects saw a sudden wave of interest in Nova Scotia last week, with the province approving 372 megawatts of new Indigenous-owned wind capacity and a private developer seeking a permit for a green hydrogen and ammonia plant on Cape Breton Island.

A Gwich’in-owned company in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, is building a one-megawatt solar farm that will reduce the community’s greenhouse gas emissions by 380,000 tonnes per year, cut annual energy costs by $1 million, and improve air quality by replacing local diesel generation.

Recognizing opportunity in the ubiquity of large, glass-walled buildings, and of windows in general, researchers and start-ups are working to create a solar window that is as efficient as it is transparent.

Conservation advocates and experts are concerned a proposal for a Calgary-to-Banff passenger train is chugging along without addressing some key environmental issues in and around the national park.

The transmission organization that operates the United States’ largest multi-state grid has greenlighted a US$10.3-billion investment in high-voltage transmission lines to clear bottlenecks that have impeded nearly 100 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity.

As the Toronto Community Housing Corporation embarks on an ambitious retrofit that will benefit its tenants and the climate, residents sweltering in a privately-owned low-income building across town are battling a landlord threatening eviction if they turn on the air-conditioning.

In Louisiana—where the impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Ida are still rippling through communities—a non-profit and a seaport are demonstrating two distinct responses to climate change.

Prospects for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export deal from Canada to Germany are close to evaporating as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz prepares for a visit to Montreal, Toronto, and Stephenville, Newfoundland August 21-23, The Energy Mix has learned.

U.S. climate hawks declared victory, Congressional Democrats got credit for a newly pragmatic approach to climate action, community campaigners demanded more ambitious action, and attention shifted to implementation after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the country’s $370-billion climate and clean energy plan and sent it to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.

New solar installations around the world are poised to grow by a “staggering” 30% this year, and the industry can look ahead to double-digit growth each year through 2025, according to a Bloomberg.com analysis that predates the ambitious clean energy provisions in the US$369-billion Inflation Reduction Act adopted by the U.S. Congress last week.

A suite of recent policy and technology advancements is allowing for the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the U.S., with innovative approaches like transportable microgrids and vehicle-to-grid programs gaining momentum.

As the global push for a hydrogen economy accelerates, researchers are urging policy-makers to address new knowledge and fill in some profound data gaps, with recent studies revealing the considerable global warming potential of a fuel that many fossils see as their industry’s best hope for a second life.

After a marathon series of votes that began just before midnight Saturday, the United States Senate adopted a US$369-billion climate and clean energy plan Sunday afternoon, the country’s biggest-ever investment in climate action.

The high cost of fossil fuels is making green hydrogen a better bet than the “blue” variety produced from natural gas, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden admitted last week.

China’s fourteenth five-year plan (14FYP) shows the country could build enough wind and solar capacity to reach its emissions peak ahead of schedule, but continuing coal investments raise doubts.

Homeowners considering rooftop solar to slash their energy bills can turn to a new Forbes guide to solar shingles, listing the biggest names in the market and detailing the pros and cons of solar shingles versus panels.

Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity turned up the heat on swing-vote senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, a wider network of business groups stepped up to defend the deal, and environmental justice campaigners decried concessions to oil and gas as advocates absorbed the details of the $369.75-billion climate and clean energy package announced last week by Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer.

The Trudeau government has released a proposed frame for new Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) aimed at bringing the grid’s greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2035. Comments on the plan close August 17.

Solar power is keeping the Texas grid from crashing—despite a sharp increase in energy demand due to record-breaking high temperatures, says an energy expert.

Alberta-based PCL Construction’s 2021 solar construction revenue increased 60% over the previous year, totalling more than half a billion dollars. By the end of 2022, the company expects solar revenue to hit just under $800 million.

The United States is back on the cusp of the biggest climate investment in its history after Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and coal state Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) agreed to a US$370-billion climate and clean energy package, ending months of negotiations on what one elated advocate called the “best-kept secret in Washington”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Nova Scotia last Thursday to promise green energy funds for the province, but he also said the idea of upgraded facilities to help ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe in the “very short term” is back on the table.

Offshore wind proponents are exploring “turbine reefs”—coral habitats planted on wind turbine bases—as a solution to the intersecting crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Shell has revealed plans to build a 200-megawatt renewable hydrogen plant in the Netherlands—and to use that green fuel to power its production of petrol, diesel, and jet fuel—as the company continues to invest heavily in oil and gas development worldwide.

Rising clean energy investments and an expanding offshore wind sector are pointing toward a new renewable energy boom in India, as the falling cost of clean technologies paired with the global energy crisis siphons investment away from fossil fuels.

Millionaire coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) played his final card and the White House conceded defeat on ambitious U.S. climate legislation, after the renegade senator declared he wouldn’t support any climate or energy provisions in President Joe Biden’s signature clean energy package.

Hundreds are dead from heat-related causes, tens of thousands are displaced by raging wildfires, and global food security is yet further threatened as vast swathes of western Europe, North Africa, and China continue to suffer in the grip of lethal heat.

New wind and solar projects saved countries US$82 billion in fossil fuel costs and will continue to provide badly-needed relief from rising electricity bills, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concludes in a report issued last Thursday.

An environmental assessment for a one-gigawatt, 164-turbine wind farm/green hydrogen and ammonia park in rural Newfoundland is generating local concern about potential habitat impacts, while picking up some high-powered support for the community benefits the project would bring.

The United States’ largest public utility has issued a request for 5,000 megawatts of carbon-free energy before 2029—weeks after it was directed to reconsider plans for converting a retiring coal plant to a natural gas facility.

The European Union’s need for natural gas will peak in about three years and begin declining before any new, fixed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals can be brought online, and EU countries are deliberately trying to avoid the kind of long-term supply contracts that Canadian gas producers are looking for, a UK-based fossil fuel specialist says.

In what CNN is calling a “rare move”, more than 200 U.S. congressional staffers have written to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer demanding fast action on climate change and clean energy.

Most of the world can switch to renewable energy without destabilizing power grids, at low cost, and relying almost entirely on existing technologies, according to a new Stanford University study.

Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian-made solar products will be scrapped, after Canada, the United States and Mexico reached a deal at trade talks in Vancouver last week.

The United Kingdom will add 10 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity to its power grid at one-quarter the cost of fossil gas after concluding its biggest-ever auction for new renewable supplies.

The electricity system regulator in the United States could help slash inflation and double the country’s renewable energy supply by encouraging technologies to reduce the “absurd” 3.5-year wait times delaying interconnections between regional power systems, the Rocky Mountain Institute argues in a new analysis.

The Solar and Energy Storage Association of Puerto Rico is claiming a victory for grid resilience after the Caribbean island installed thousands of solar batteries in the wake of a devastating hurricane in 2017. But liquefied natural gas is still very much on the agenda for the local utility.

Looking to avoid power blackouts, California may turn to the one energy source it’s otherwise desperate to get rid of: fossil fuels.

There will be no federal financing for two companies vying to export Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe from terminals on the East Coast, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a recent interview with the Globe and Mail.

A group of 15 trainees will be heading out into the field to begin converting two Alberta oilfield sites into solar farms, after graduating from a rapid upskilling program for fossil industry and Indigenous workers hosted by Iron & Earth and Medicine Hat College.

G7 leaders meeting in Bavaria this week affirmed their rhetorical commitment to climate action but walked back a month-old promise to swiftly end public investment in overseas fossil fuel projects as they sought to grapple with the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The inventory of offshore wind projects in development or under production has nearly doubled in the last year, to an astonishing 846 gigawatts, according to the latest market intelligence data report from RenewableUK.

There’s a categorical difference between the raw materials of the clean energy economy and those from fossil fuels, writes Canary Media. But to be considered truly sustainable, renewable industries need to restructure to allow their products to be recycled at the end of their lives.

Global clean energy investment is on track to exceed US$1.4 trillion this year, representing “an important step in the right direction” that nevertheless falls “well short of what is required to hit international climate goals,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) concludes in its annual World Energy Investment 2022 report released yesterday.

Critical mineral infrastructure and hydrogen production are two of the centrepieces of a new industrial strategy for natural resources unveiled Monday by Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

China’s wind and solar potential is a whopping nine times what it would need to become carbon-neutral, according to new research conducted to help policy-makers figure out whether they can expand the two technologies from combined capacity of 630 gigawatts to a target of 1,200 GW by the end of the decade.

Countries accounting for about 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and economic output made new promises on methane controls, clean energy technology demonstrations, zero-emission vehicles, food security and agriculture emissions, and green shipping at a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate convened by U.S. President Joe Biden June 17.

Ottawa has launched the first phase of its plan to offer interest-free loans to Canadians planning upgrades that will have a significant impact in reducing their homes’ environmental footprint.

Germany is turning to offshore wind power to stabilize grid fluctuations for the first time, in what’s being called a “milestone” for the country’s energy transition.

The countries of the world missed an “historic chance for a clean energy recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic and saw renewable energy stagnate due to a surge of fossil fuel subsidies last year, the REN 21 Secretariat reports this morning in its Renewables 2022 Global Status Report.

BlocPower’s Civilian Climate Corps provides paid, on-the-job training to New Yorkers who live in neighbourhoods with high rates of gun violence, aiming to start them on their way to a career in the city’s fast-growing green construction and clean energy trades.

Deploying different energy storage technologies can optimize the use of increasing but intermittent renewable energy sources and enable the United States to fully shift off fossil-fuelled generation systems by mid-century, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI) study concludes.

Ukrainian state oil and gas company Naftogaz has announced a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and green hydrogen from Quebec, beginning in just five years.

Unprecedented growth in Alberta’s renewable energy sector signifies a vital shift in the province’s energy economy, says the Pembina Institute, but another expert notes that Alberta’s power market also needs to be fixed—so that consumers aren’t overcharged for new grid infrastructure in the renewables boom.

The European Union’s plan to hit carbon neutrality by 2050 and support a 1.5°C limit on average global warming will require the continent to install 400 gigawatts of new solar and wind per year between 2025 and 2035, ramp up hydrogen production, and develop viable carbon capture technology, concludes a recent study by an energy systems specialist at Aarhus University in Denmark.

Flower power of a different kind—a flower-shaped solar-powered microgrid, to be precise—stands ready to power a Saskatoon high school, and inspire its students.

A new study dispels concerns that new wind farms will harm communities by lowering property values, showing that the facilities actually raise incomes and home prices in the rural United States.

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced a two-year pause on a controversial tariff that was hobbling his country’s solar panel installation industry and imperiling his administration’s 2035 clean energy goal.

Canada’s shift to local renewables is in full swing from coast to coast, with Indigenous-owned hydroelectric and heat pump projects afoot in British Columbia, a 21-megawatt solar and storage project under way in Prince Edward Island, and new wind turbines coming to New Brunswick.

Three Cambridge engineers have filed to patent the world’s first emissions-free cement recycling process.

Tinkering with the planet’s air to cool Earth’s ever-warming climate is inching close enough to reality that two different high-powered groups—one consisting of scientists, the other involving former world leaders including former Canadian prime minister Kim Campbell—are trying to come up with ethics and governing guidelines.

A lithium-ion battery recycler, a deep geothermal developer, an electric bus manufacturer, and start-ups working on energy storage, fuel cell, electrolyzer, carbon capture, and desalination technologies are among the fastest-growing green companies in Canada, according to the Future 50 list release last week by Corporate Knights.

The current energy crisis is making “blue” hydrogen derived from natural gas with carbon capture even more impractical than it already was, raising broader questions about the use of gas to produce electricity, a new analysis concludes.

California’s unrelenting drought is straining the state’s resources and inflaming tensions in the legislature, as crucial drought relief policies and action are delayed by competing priorities like the pandemic, homelessness, and wildfires.

Calgary city staff have unveiled an $87-billion climate plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, deliver $80 billion in energy savings, and generate $60 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) by mid-century.

The recently-proposed HEATR Act could accelerate heat pump adoption in the United States, deliver cost savings for consumers, and attract support from both sides of the aisle, say two commentators from opposite sides of the country’s fraught political spectrum.

A trial of sheep grazing under solar panels in New South Wales could lead to further research, after local graziers claimed that panel-bedecked pastures better sustained feed supplies through drought and improved the wool quality of their flocks.

California is gaining pace on its clean energy targets, with five leases for a combined 380,000 acres of floating offshore wind development a step closer to being auctioned. The most populous state in the United States could serve as a “guiding light” in the energy transition, with research estimating that California could achieve 85% clean electricity by the end of the decade.

With the provincial election just days away, a business group in Windsor is blaming the Ford government’s hostility to renewable energy for the loss of a C$2.5-billion investment from South Korean chemical giant LG Chem.

A lethal combination of energy shortages and searing heat is poised to generate enormous suffering in many parts of the world this summer, especially for the poor, the elderly, and those living in Asia, southern Africa, eastern Europe, and the American Midwest.

The Biden administration has become the latest target of the Alberta government’s enduring sense of grievance, after Ambassador David Cohen declared a “return to civility” following the Trump years but expressed skepticism about increasing his country’s imports of Canadian oil and gas.

A South Korean solar panel maker announced last Thursday that it will expand its presence in Georgia, building a new US$171-million plant next to an existing factory in Dalton.

Canada can achieve 100% zero-emission electricity by 2035 with an electricity system that prioritizes renewable energy, storage, energy efficiency, and interprovincial transmission and avoids the pitfalls of nuclear generation, fossil gas, carbon capture and storage, and carbon offsets, the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) concludes in a modelling study released this week.

If Australia’s 2019 federal election was about coal and preserving coal jobs, the 2022 campaign was about acting on climate change and addressing integrity and corruption issues at the federal level. This is the essential message from Australia’s complicated federal election result May 21, writes climate campaigner and citizen journalist John Englart.

Invoking economic opportunity while avoiding language that conjures reduced choice or increased regulation—including the polarizing term ‘climate change’—is a key strategy to get renewable power projects approved in Republican states, say the authors of a new study.

Across the globe, peatlands are under threat and their destruction is contributing to climate change. In Canada, Europe, and the tropics, peatlands are being drained for urban, suburban, and infrastructure expansion, converted to dryland agriculture, and mined for fuel and the horticulture industry, researchers Rafael Ziegler, Magali Simard, Rahma Eldeeb write for The Conversation.

A collection of power sector suppliers from around the world has introduced a Powering Net Zero Pact to “promote a fair and just transition” to reduce emissions.

Police in the United Kingdom arrested 15 Greenpeace activists on Monday after they blocked a Russian tanker from docking in Essex. The campaigners said the tanker contained diesel fuel worth US$36.5 million that would fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A floating tidal energy project in the Bay of Fundy has been successfully connected to Nova Scotia’s grid, an undertaking that marks a milestone for Canada’s marine energy ambitions, say proponents, as the bay’s tidal resources could be harnessed for thousands of megawatts of clean energy in the future.

The Trudeau government is talking up prospects for a new gas export deal to Germany involving a project that has already been proposed and withdrawn, a gas field in the Alberta foothills that has drawn scrutiny from provincial regulators, a financing scheme that will likely need federal backing to succeed, a route that may need U.S. regulatory approval, and a timeline that will likely be cut short by Europe’s rapid decarbonization plans, The Energy Mix has learned.

As distributed solar that put the technology closer to consumers, rather than at a centralized generating station, gains serious ground in the United States, distributed energy resources (DERs) are running into barriers in Canada, especially in Ontario.

Canadian Solar Inc. has announced an investigation to determine whether any workers at its photovoltaic plant in China’s Xinjiang region were hired against their will, though the company claimed in the past it would be impossible to determine if its supply chain used forced labour.

Greenhouse gas emissions from Ontario’s electricity system are set to increase more than 400% over the next two decades after the Doug Ford government cancelled a major wind farm and 758 smaller renewable energy projects, according to a forecast published by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator and reported by the Toronto Star.

New renewable energy capacity will exceed 300 gigawatts this year for the first time, with mounting concerns about climate change and energy security driving an 8% increase over 2021 despite rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports this week in its annual renewables market update.

Climate change and social equity were both on the curriculum for the designers and builders of two new purpose-built schools in Washington, DC.

Utilities across several states are warning of rolling blackouts caused by electricity shortages, as the United States braces itself for a summer of record-breaking heat waves that will drive up energy demand.

Substituting meat from cattle and other ruminants with microbial protein grown in bioreactors could greatly reduce deforestation and emissions from global meat consumption by mid-century, according to a study in the journal Nature.

Europe will have 142 GW of electrolyzer projects operational by 2030, according to one estimate.

Renewable energy delivered a record 83.8% of electricity demand in the Australian state of Victoria in the early afternoon of Easter Sunday, April 17, according to the NEMLog data collection site.

With the shift to renewable energy dependent on at least 100 times energy storage more by 2040, according to one estimate, engineers and material scientists the world over are working feverishly to come up with solutions.

Masdar has signed an agreement to build up to a gigawatt of new renewable energy projects in Kyrgyzstan.

North Carolina is making a bad bet on biogas and biomass projects that contaminate the environment, raise environmental justice concerns, and “crowd out real clean energy solutions,” Inside Climate News reports in a recent exposé.

Steel and mining multinational ArcelorMittal SA conducted a first, successful test of green hydrogen for the direct reduced iron (DRI) process at its plant in Contrecoeur, Quebec, the company announced last week.

A new photovoltaic (PV) system designed by French company Ecovégétal increases energy yields by up to 10% by combining solar power generation with urban agriculture.

Montreal will mandate a zero-emission standard for all new construction beginning in 2025, Mayor Valérie Plante announced Tuesday.

Canada’s electricity system will have to get bigger, cleaner, and smarter to help power the country’s net-zero transition, the Canadian Climate Institute concludes in a collection of three reports issued Wednesday.

With the Ontario election under way and party platforms rolling out, there aren’t very many dramatic differences among the climate and environment commitments from the three provincial opposition parties, a compendium released by 13 environmental organizations shows.

The clean energy transition stands to suffer a major blow as wind turbine manufacturers struggle to maintain profitability due to vanishing subsidies, high materials costs, and supply chain issues worsened by the war in Ukraine.

Tokyu Railways in Japan has begun using only renewable power sources for train and station operation along its sprawling route between Tokyo and Yokohama, producing carbon dioxide reductions that it says are equivalent to the annual average emissions of 56,000 Japanese households.

Amid growing climate concerns and the falling price of renewables, Minnesota utility Xcel Energy is planning to replace the state’s largest coal plant—the Sherburne County Generating Station, known as Sherco—with solar arrays.

A massive drought-starved reservoir on the Colorado River has become so depleted that Las Vegas now is pumping water from deeper within Lake Mead where other states downstream don’t have access.

As an example of what some see as a key piece of the transition to clean energy, a community battery in a Perth, Australia, suburb won over some of the community’s residents by storing electricity from rooftop solar panels to distribute back to the grid.

India enjoyed a record year for new renewable energy capacity in 2020-21, at 13.5 gigawatts, but is still far off the momentum it needs to hit national targets.

Etobicoke-based Mitrex Integrated Solar Technology has signed on to install North America’s biggest building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) system, at a student residence at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.

BC Hydro is falling short of its obligations to fund habitat conservation under the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program, according to a brief from the B.C. Wildlife Federation and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre that asks the provincial auditor general to look into the matter.

California generated 97% of its electricity from renewable energy sources on a Sunday afternoon last month.

Most new commercial and large multi-family buildings in Washington must install heat pumps under provisions of a revised energy code.

A growing body of research published over the past two decades has found that most reservoirs, including those used for hydropower, aren’t emissions-free. Despite the green reputation of hydropower among policy-makers, some reservoirs emit significant amounts of methane, along with much smaller amounts of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.

The world’s biggest solar+storage project is expected to include 20 gigawatts of solar capacity and 42 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity, enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 480 million tonnes per year, according to environmental impact documents filed last week with an Australian regulator.

The pilot stage of Edmonton’s Clean Energy Improvement Program was fully subscribed within 48 hours of its launch at the end of March, as homeowners raced to benefit from the promise of low-cost financing for climate-friendly improvements like solar panels and insulation upgrades.

Oil demand could peak by 2025 as the global energy transition gains momentum, and renewable energy is on track to become “the new baseload” by 2030, according to this year’s edition of the Global Energy Perspective report issued by McKinsey & Partners.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has unexpectedly vetoed a bill that would have slashed the rates that utilities have to pay rooftop solar owners who sell their surplus power back to the grid, a move that would have devastated the solar industry in the U.S. jurisdiction known as the Sunshine State.

South Melbourne, Australia-based Montem Resources has announced plans to pursue a renewable energy project at its Tent Mountain site in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass instead of its planned coal mine, but some environmental advocates remain suspicious of the company’s plans.

Energy efficiency—using less energy to accomplish the same output—has long been championed as an effective way to cut emissions/ But the climate crisis now demands a carbon-cutting strategy where fuel conversion, not conservation, takes top priority, says an expert.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator is checking in with stakeholders on a plan to invest US$10.4 billion in new transmission that would enable as much as 53 gigawatts of new wind, solar, hybrid, and stand-alone battery storage capacity.

In a U.S. state where coal is still king, solar energy is beginning to come on strong, as West Virginia gradually begins to prepare itself for the transition off fossil fuels.

Canada’s latest climate plan makes “overly optimistic” about the role of hydrogen, fails to map out a just transition for fossil fuel workers and communities, relies on “aspirational numbers” for carbon capture and storage technology, and may ultimately fall short of the country’s 2030 emission reduction target, Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry DeMarco warned Tuesday.

America’s electric power system is undergoing radical change as it transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy. While the first decade of the 2000s saw huge growth in natural gas generation, and the 2010s were the decade of wind and solar, early signs suggest the innovation of the 2020s may be a boom in “hybrid” power plants.

Binding, science-based climate targets, respect for Indigenous sovereignty, and investment in a “thriving, regenerative, zero-emissions economy” are the top demands from more than 125 organizations that were scheduled to launch the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign at the provincial legislature later today.

The Biden administration is scrapping old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs, speeding an ongoing trend toward more efficient lighting that officials say will save households, schools, and businesses billions of dollars a year.

Canada is on track to add 5.5 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity this year, most of it in Alberta, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Germany produced 25% more electricity from wind and solar in the first quarter of this year as a result of unusually windy and sunny weather, when compared with the first three months of last year.

Swedish state power company Vattenfall is beginning installation on the world’s biggest subsidy-free wind farm, the 1.5 GW Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.

Quebec will issue two new requests for proposals for 2,300 megawatts of new wind and other renewable energy capacity, Premier François Legault announced last week during a visit to the province’s Gaspé region.

With pre-election announcements in full swing ahead of a June 2 vote, Ontario has shifted its net metering regulations to make it easier for homeowners, farms, and businesses to generate income from rooftop solar or other renewable energy systems by selling surplus electricity back to the grid.

Natural gas-fired power generation in the United States peaked in 2020, and it will continue to fall as it competes with increasingly affordable wind and solar capacity, according to analysts who say renewables’ growth is being “supercharged” by rising fossil fuel costs and disruptions in energy security.

Countries must accelerate their transition off fossil fuels, not abandon urgent climate action, as they scramble to replace oil and gas supplies from Russia in response to the war in Ukraine, the steering group of the Net-Zero Asset Owners Alliance declared earlier this month.

Michigan’s biggest energy supplier will phase out coal in 2025, 15 years ahead of its original schedule, embrace low-carbon electricity options, and donate to a fund for low-income utility customers under a proposed settlement with Attorney General Dana Nessel.

A late March day saw wind power generate more electricity in the United States than either coal or nuclear, for the first time on record.

A diminutive, battery-powered cargo plane that looks like a cross between an Arctic tern and a helicopter is being built in Vermont, backed by the likes of Amazon and the United States military.

Climate and energy are on the ballot in France’s run-off election for president, as incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the far-right’s Marine Le Pen court the 7.7 million voters who supported far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round.

In the early hours of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, two American non-profits devised a plan to send solar microgrids to a Ukrainian hospital and emergency power equipment to a refugee camp, sparking an energy transition as the devastation of war caused power outages across the country.

The Seigneurie de Beaupré region northeast of Quebec City is in line to add three new wind farms totalling 1.2 gigawatts of capacity under a deal announced yesterday by renewable energy developer Boralex, Hydro-Québec, and Énergir, the gas distribution company formerly known as Gaz Métro.

The Ontario government’s new hydrogen strategy reflects a “lobbyist feeding frenzy” and lacks “evidence, analysis, and critical thought,” says a climate policy expert.

Germany’s energy security and climate policies leapt forward in a recently-announced Easter Package that outlines ambitious transition targets as the country struggles to unyoke itself from Russian oil.

One of the biggest gaps in the federal government’s long-awaited Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) is a reality the Trudeau government has no ability to control: its ability to deliver as promised depends on a provincial government in Ontario that has no intention of playing its part.

A company hoping to develop coal in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains says it will decide by the end of June whether to convert its open-pit mine proposal into a renewable energy project.

A new study reconsiders energy efficiency as distinct from its carbon reduction potential and finds that it will still play a critical role in a successful transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Plans to build a up to eight giant new nuclear reactors plus a raft of small modular reactors as part of the new energy strategy announced yesterday by the British government were met with outrage by environmentalists and scientists.

The federal cabinet administered what one critic called a “slap in the face” to climate science with a decision today to approve the massive Bay du Nord oil and gas megaproject off the Newfoundland coast.

On the very same day that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its “now or never” plea to slam the brakes on carbon, Calgary-based Suncor Energy ditched its solar and wind assets—aiming instead to keep the combustion engine alive with hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) tech.

A price tag in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, and a project scope akin to that of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1800s. That’s the scale of the massive investment in Canada’s electricity grid that experts say will be required in the near future, as the phaseout of fossil-fired power generation combined with a rapid increase in demand for electricity puts never-before-seen demands on this country’s electrical grid.

Calgary-based electricity company TransAlta Corporation says it has signed a deal with Meta, under which the tech behemoth formerly known as Facebook will buy power generated at its new 200-megawatt wind farm in Oklahoma.

With the options for holding global warming to 1.5°C quickly closing, countries must immediately phase down fossil fuel production, embrace low-carbon technologies that are already practical and affordable, mobilize citizens around the benefits of decarbonization, and increase low-carbon financing three- to six-fold, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in a 2,913-page report released yesterday.

Monday’s climate mitigation report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows it’s still possible to hold global warming to 1.5°C, with little or no overshoot and no reliance on speculative carbon dioxide removal technologies—but only with much faster government action and a sixfold increase in annual funding for solutions that work.

The IPCC’s message on mitigation offers encouragement but leaves no room for any possible complacency: the evidence shows that humanity could contain global warming to no more than 1.5°C above the long-term average for most of human history, but only with rapid, deep reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate emergency.

For the first time in the UN agency’s 34-year history, yesterday’s massive report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduces the language of “demand-side” action to the field of climate mitigation, with potential to reduce emissions by 40 to 70% in the places where people live, work, learn, and play.

The cost of electricity from renewables and batteries to store the energy they produce have come down so dramatically in last five years that they are out-competing fossil fuels in most places on the planet, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in its climate mitigation report released yesterday.

If global warming is to be limited to 1.5°C by 2050, the world’s transport emissions need to fall by 59% from 2020 levels, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), calling for “transformative” changes in the sector in its latest mitigation report.

Greenhouse gas emissions from heavy industry have grown faster since 2000 than emissions from any other sector, and reducing them will be a challenge that requires coordinated action on all mitigation options, according to yesterday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Provincial and territorial energy efficiency programs are failing to reach the 20% of Canadians who are struggling to cover their home energy costs, but federal investment can stop those households from being left behind in the push for net-zero emissions, Efficiency Canada says in a new report.

A new multi-state consortium led by New York is forming partnerships with a group of 40 clean power companies, utilities, and universities to curb emissions by developing a regional clean energy hydrogen hub.

Sustaining the current 20% compound annual growth rate of solar and wind out to 2030 will keep hopes of limiting global heating to 1.5°C very much alive, says the UK-based non-profit Ember in its third annual global electricity review.

As it seeks to decarbonize the grid, Canada’s “balkanized” power sector has much to learn from longstanding Nordic co-operation, policy advisor Shawn McCarthy writes in a recent case study for the Canadian Climate Institute.

The fossil and transportation sectors get a relatively free ride and electricity producers do the most to decarbonize in the much-anticipated 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan released yesterday by Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault.

Canada’s National Research Council has quietly released a new set of national building codes that show how provincial and territorial governments—which actually hold authority for codes and standards—can make new buildings net-zero ready by 2030.

A new study points to geothermal energy as an untapped resource that could stabilize energy grids and support decarbonization of the world’s megacities, which are seeing increasing energy needs as urban populations rise.

An agreement by a Michigan public utility to expand its low-income efficiency programs and study how the energy burden of vulnerable households can be reduced is being hailed by environmental justice advocates as a crucial move towards fighting energy inequality.

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is good reason to “crank with wartime urgency” the mass insulation of buildings and deployment of renewables, energy conservation pioneer Amory Lovins declares in an interview with the Guardian.

European environmental law charity ClientEarth is launching a legal action against colossal fossil Shell and its board of directors, and inviting other Shell shareholders to join the fight.

Using a combination of solar panels and a hydrogel that sucks water vapour out of the air, a test project run by environmental engineers in Saudi Arabia successfully grew a crop of water spinach last summer using only the water generated by a novel green energy system, known as WEC2P.

Canada’s oil and gas producers can hike output by the equivalent of 300,000 barrels a day by the end of the year to help displace Russian fossil fuels, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Thursday.

Canada’s first-ever green bond raised $5 billion for environmentally focused projects this Tuesday, after a week-long issuance period that showed investors willing to buy more than twice the value of assets on offer.

Iron & Earth has launched a new online tool to help Canadian fossil fuel workers move into careers in the net-zero economy, matching their skills to trades and administration positions in wind, solar, energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging, and more.

The federal Liberals and New Democrats must make good use of the next three-plus years of political stability by embracing more decisive climate action than they promised in the supply and confidence agreement (CSA) unveiled yesterday, leading climate policy analysts have told The Energy Mix.

An announcement that Germany’s emissions increased last year has put pressure on the country to expand its renewable energy infrastructure or risk delaying its climate goals.

Flying less is currently the only path to rapid reduction in aviation emissions, and will remain so for longer than necessary if the aviation industry fails to grasp that its survival depends on embracing climate-friendly technological innovation, a veteran climate and aviation analyst warns.

The United Kingdom could eliminate all need for imported Russian gas this year and cut average home heating costs by £150 by embracing insulation and heat pumps, encouraging consumers to change their energy habits, and relying more on renewable energy, the E3G climate consultancy concludes in an analysis released last week.

Royal Bank of Canada, Shopify, and Bullfrog Power Inc. have signed a deal to buy a combined 90,000 megawatt-hours per year from a Berkshire Hathaway wind power project in southeast Alberta.

After a decades-long effort, an international study team is reporting “promising” first steps in using sunlight to convert captured carbon dioxide into fuel.

The horrific news from Vladimir Putin’s invasion, coupled with a history of family experience with war, escape, and loss, has a Montreal clean energy executive on a mission to raise $100,000 for emergency relief in Ukraine.

With the war in Ukraine triggering a secondary crisis in gas heating costs across Europe, “tackling poor quality homes in marginal constituencies could swing election success,” the United Kingdom’s Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) concludes in a report released last week.

A group of 16 community renewable energy co-ops from seven provinces is fighting an uphill battle for recognition, nearly a month after urging the federal government to make it easier for Canadians to invest in locally-owned and -generated electricity.

With extreme weather wreaking havoc on power lines, experts are turning their attention to emerging transmission technologies, and have named four companies to watch as the United States ramps up renewables-based electrification.

Like wind and solar, tidal and other forms of marine power consume no fossil fuels and produce no carbon emissions. Freelance writer Alexander Gelfand dives into why tidal has been so slow to develop.

A recent solar technology breakthrough from UK scientists brings “wearable solar” one step closer to commercial production and could greatly expand the amount of solar power generated by weaving the microscopic technology into daily living.

China’s dual status as both the world’s top coal consumer and renewable energy developer raises questions about whether the country is meeting its climate pledges, but some analysts say focusing on these two domestic factors misses the larger picture of China’s role in the international energy transition.

Following a dramatic pledge yesterday to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by 65% this year and phase out all Russian fossil fuels “well before 2030”, the European Union is under pressure to replace gas from all sources through a rapid transition to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy hit a record high of 36.3 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) in 2021, the International Energy Agency reported yesterday, with an “extremely rapid economic recovery” translating into higher emissions from fuel burning and industrial processes and China accounting for the largest share of the increase.

Hawaiian households with rooftop solar will soon be rewarded for sharing electricity with the grid at peak hours, while in California, three utilities are pushing to make solar-equipped homes pay extra fees as their monthly power bills go down.

Over the past two decades, energy efficiency measures in Canada have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 55 megatonnes (Mt) and saved C$26 billion in energy costs for consumers, according to a report from Natural Resources Canada.

With Vladimir Putin’s devastating war in Ukraine now well into its second week, news coverage and commentary are turning to the steps other European countries can take to break their dependence on Russian oil and gas, once and for all.

New Brunswick’s provincial utility and its government must work together to ensure that low- and middle-income households can afford energy retrofits, a new report says, in a critique of the province’s failure to make energy efficiency accessible to all.

A wind turbine should be up and running in Inuvik, NWT by early 2023, reducing the territory’s annual emissions by 6,000 tonnes and saving the NWT Power Corporation (NTPC) C$3 million in diesel costs—though how much of these savings will be passed down to households remains uncertain.

An auction for the right to generate wind power off the coast of New York and New Jersey yielded record-breaking bids totalling US$4.37 billion—more than 10 times the amount of the previous offshore wind lease.